Global Dispatches: German police seize pirated Office 2003 software, arrest two

Computerworld -

German Police Seize Pirated Office Software
COLOGNE, Germany -- Local police arrested two people and confiscated nearly 200 pirated copies of Office 2003 on Sept. 9, a day after Microsoft Corp. lodged a criminal complaint against the alleged software pirates.
A 24-year-old man and his 20-year-old girlfriend were arrested in connection with the software pirating, according to Microsoft's German subsidiary. The duo was discovered after the company conducted a test purchase of products being sold at suspiciously low prices on eBay Inc.'s online auction site in Germany, said a spokesman for Microsoft Deutschland GmbH.
The product imitations that were seized looked "astonishingly genuine, especially the hologram on the CD," the spokesman said. Although the hologram was stamped onto the CD-ROM as a label -- and not burned in as it is with genuine Microsoft products -- it was sealed with a clear lacquer and looked authentic to the untrained eye, he said.
Microsoft suspects that the pirated products are the work of professional software thieves, possibly located in Asia.
• John Blau, IDG News Service

EBay to Buy VoIP Vendor Skype in $2.6B Deal
LUXEMBOURG -- EBay last week announced that it has agreed to acquire Internet telephony company Skype Technologies SA in a cash-and-stock deal with an upfront value of 2.1 billion euros ($2.6 billion U.S.). In addition, San Jose-based eBay could pay another 1.2 billion euros ($1.5 billion) over the next four years based on the performance of the Skype operations.
Officials from the companies said the deal should help eBay expand into new businesses while enlarging the potential customer base for Skype's voice-over-IP (VoIP) services. Luxembourg-based Skype, which was founded two years ago by Scandinavians Niklas Zennstrsm and Janus Friis, currently claims 54 million home and business users in 225 countries and territories.
The company said it's adding about 150,000 new users a day.
Both Zennstrsm and Friis, who last month said that Skype was "built to be independent," have agreed to join eBay in unspecified roles, said eBay President and CEO Meg Whitman.
• John Blau, IDG News Service

IBM to Try Pay-per-Use Pricing for Tools in Asia
TAIPEI, Taiwan -- IBM later this year plans to start rolling out a pay-per-use pricing model in Asia for its Rational Software Corp. development tools in an effort to make them more accessible to small companies.
The company plans to introduce the program, called Rational On Demand, in Taiwan next quarter. An IBM intermediary organization, International Integrated Systems Inc. (IISI), will oversee the program, said Vaughan Woods, director of IBM's Rational Software operations in the Asia-Pacific region.
The program may be extended to China and India depending on its success in Taiwan, Woods said. He added that IBM has no immediate plans to offer Rational On Demand in Europe or North America.
Taipei-based IISI is owned by IBM Taiwan and the Institute for Information Industry, which was set up by the Taiwanese government to help develop the local IT industry.
• John Ribeiro, IDG News Service


Briefly Noted